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Going to be in the minority here, but i do prefer "White Pony" with "Back to School" on it.
The version i bought a long time ago was the "white cover", at the time i didn't know about the "Back to School" controversy, so to me the album has always been that way.
Even there was a video for the song, so i always considered it part of the album...

I've always loved Back to School. I also only had the White Cover as well, and definitely prefer the album with Back to School, and with a song like Elite on it, it always seemed to fit on it just fine.

I also haven't followed the Deftones for quite some time, but I actually got to seem them live back in 2007. I also remembered liking the self-titled album, but kept going back to Around the Fur and White Pony.

i was always a fringe fan.....and then came diamond eyes. everything improved (sonically/lyrically), id say diamond eyes and koi no yokan are by far their career peaks (thus far). gore has its moments, but too inconsistent.

"Back to School" is a pretty questionable song that carries a lot of weird baggage with it. I mean, anytime you hear about a record label telling a band that they need to rework their (fucking awesome) new album so that it'll be more marketable, it just looks lame as fuck. No one's ever going to respect that, which is why that song was probably doomed before it was even put out. It also completely fucked up the flow and sequencing of the album. There's something almost punk rock in the way they opened it with "Feiticeira." Changing it so that it's now track two just makes no sense. It doesn't feel right.

Also, the song comes off as looking even worse because of the fact that it's a re-worked version of the closing track, "Pink Maggot," which is like 30,000 times better. If they had done a totally original song, maybe it wouldn't have stood out as much, but by showing us a shitty alternate version of the song with fucking rap verses thrown in and all dressed up for the radio, you can just feel that sense of contrast even more cause you can hear the difference side by side. Like, here's the cooler, original, more inspired version of this song, and then here's the fucking lame ass rap metal pop radio horseshit version. I mean, it just looks terrible.

Despite all that I actually kind of liked Back to School back in the day. It doesn't hold up too well these days, but at the time I thought it was somewhat cool. It just should have been put out as a b-side or maybe on a movie soundtrack or something. That shit had no fucking business being on White Pony, and as far as I'm concerned, that is NOT the canonical version of the album. I don't care what anyone says, not even the band...I staunchly reject that messed with version of the album, just like I reject George Lucas' fucked up reworkings of the original SW trilogy.

The "Back to School" version of White Pony was the one I bought, so it's special to me the way first pressing is special to so many others, especially the band.

It genuinely sucks and is lame that there's so much artistically-bankrupt-commercial-intent behind it, but after watching my brother become a fan in the years leading up to WP, "Back to School" is probably the song that got me to really investigate the band if I'm being totally honest. Hopefully it had a similar effect on many others (i.e. acting as an introduction to a great band whose discography has only strengthened over time), so it's not a complete black mark on the band or album's legacy.

As much as I don't care (neutral) about Back to School, it always makes me think of concept albums like Pink Floyd where the first and last songs are linked.

With System Of A Down, I love how "Soldier Side - Intro" kicks off Mezmerize and the full track "Soldier Side" closes out Hypnotize. If you set it up so that after Hypnotize ends, it goes back to the start of the Mezmerize, you can hear that "Soldier Side" flows perfectly into the "Intro" making the albums loop when played after each other. Of course, The Fragile is great if you love themes/motifs and different tracks connecting with each other.

I mentioned earlier in this thread that Chino Moreno's Spotify playlist is amazing...well, Frank Delgado's Spotify playlist is even better!!! These guys have such a great taste in music, no wonder why their music is so diverse. This is the link https://open.spotify.com/user/defton...Tp2ImRH78CGAnA

Also, lately I've been listening to this 2000 London show:

It used to be available at deftones.com back in the day, I was happy to find it again. It's rocking.

They must be sick of the 'nu metal' question. As a new fan (never checked them out until last year or so), I haven't seen a single interview where it isn't mentioned. I guess they just roll their eyes and go with it. Frankly, if I were them, I'd refuse to answer.

It used to be available at deftones.com back in the day, I was happy to find it again. It's rocking.

Not too many silver-backed Deftones bootlegs exist. I've had this one in lossless for quite a while.

I retagged everything, encoded to a more efficient (newer) FLAC encode, embedded album art, as well as added ReplayGain information for Track and Album normalization. UNSYNCHEDLYRICS were also added; the field is universally populated with "Coming soon...". This is 1). to test that the lyrics show on multiple devices, and 2). I like to add banter/etc. in to live versions as well as any changed lyrics. A COPYRIGHT field was also added, though that only seems to show up correctly with .m4a files on Apple Devices.

Original .log, .cue, and .m3u files from rip are included; I also included any scans I could find (CD, Cover, Tray Insert (Interior & Exterior). The auCDtect and foo_dr .txt files were generated by me. The DR values were also written to tags.

Remember, this was not an official release, nor is this an unofficial repress/reprint of an item "commercially" available. If any mod/admin has a problem with me sharing this, by all means, delete the link or entire post:

“That’s a good question, I don’t know, and it’s hard to say. Where we are with our writing process right now, it’s really difficult for me to put a single look on what we’re doing. It’s morphing every day that we get together and write. We’re definitely getting into experimental sort of modes, which is the funnest phase that we get into. One of the biggest records in our career is obviously White Pony, and it’s our most commercially successful record as well, but that was also one of our most experimental records, especially for the time when it came out. That record, making it was… what’s a good word to describe it? We felt really free. We basically made whatever we liked, whatever was happening at that moment. It didn’t really go along with what was going on around us, as far as our contemporaries and where other music was.”

Metal Injection and others are misrepresenting his remarks because he said they're getting into the experimental phase and then talked about White Pony being one of their MOST experimental records. He implied that every record has had an experimental phase with White Pony being the MOST experimental. Not the same thing.

Every album post SNW gets compared to White Pony. Either by the press or the band or both.....I would prefer the next Around The Fur or the next SNW or the next self titled (still their most under-rated)....

I really like Gore. It has grown on me and I feel it's different from the two albums before it. Diamond Eyes and Koi No Yokan kinda bleed into each other. I don't dislike them, but I am not in love with them. I love White Pony and Lovers (cough I mean self titled) and I quite love Gore (gasp).

Every album post SNW gets compared to White Pony. Either by the press or the band or both.....I would prefer the next Around The Fur or the next SNW or the next self titled (still their most under-rated)....

Thank you! Self titled is easily my favorite album by this band with Around the Fur being a close second. Why doesn't the self titled get more love? Everything else is good, but not in the same league as those 2 albums. White Pony is great, but it needs a couple more tracks like Elite to balance it a bit better.

One of my friends is a hardcore Deftones fan and he always shit on the self titled album until last week when I convinced him to check it out again, and now he appreciates it....I think the reason it doesn't get more love is because its their heaviest most extreme record (which is why I love it).....I always love when a band follows up their biggest breakthrough album with a wtf/extreme record....Its what Faith No More did with Angel Dust and what Trent did with The Fragile and what Deftones did with ST....Around The Fur and White Pony brought forward a lot of posers and people who just wanted to hear ballads or 'Be Quiet and Drive Part 2" or 'Change Part 2" or 'Digital bath Part 2"....And they could have easily sold out and did another WP with a bunch of smooth songs with Chino singing....Instead they just went balls to the wall with the heaviest, rawest songs they had ever written. Chino screaming his head off in almost every song. They literally didnt give a fuck around that time. Just such a raw abrasive 'fuck you' type of album.....A middle finger to everyone who wanted White Pony 2...Its by far my favorite album of theirs....I think they are down on that era because of the massive drug use they ALL were involved in at that time.....Its my fav Deftones era....Speaking of which, an uncirculated pro shot of their entire 2003 Rock Am Ring performance hit youtube last month after 16 years in the vault. 2003 era Deftones in all their excess glory....

Team Sleep‘s DJ Crook has detailed the lo-fi approach he utilized to help create the acoustic remix of the Deftones track “Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)“. That version of the song also featured Jonah Matrangaof Far, etc. fame and emerged back in 1998 on a UK single as well as the nü metal friendly soundtrack to the Adam Sandler film ‘Little Nicky‘.Through the below footage, he shows off the limited technology that was used to make the remix and had the following to say of the process:

“Here are some of the raw drum machine sounds off the original floppy disk for the 1998 “Acoustic” remix to “Be Quiet and Drive” off the Around the Fur album released in 1997. Can’t get much simpler than this, but sometimes that’s all it takes to make magic! I got a cassette in the mail with the vocals and guitar from @chinowmoreno and @jonahmatranga.All I had at the time was this drum machine (8 yrs old at the time) and a tascam 4-track cassette recorder (10 yrs old at the time). I tapped out the tempo of the song and laid out the beat and recorded it on the other free tracks directly on the cassette they sent me. It magically stayed in sync. I dumped that down to another cassette and sent it back to them. (Can’t get any grimier than that) I was making hip hop demos and DJ mixtapes at the time so this was pretty exciting.A little back story: I was visiting Sacramento when I first met Chino at @frvnkdelgvdo and @toddwilkinson apt in 1995. We got to talking and I played him a demo cassette tape of some hip hop stuff I had made and he listened to the whole thing. He then played me the “Adrenaline” album which was about to be released soon.

We eventually talked about working on something at some point and this remix was the first thing we did.

Still gorgeous after all these years. Hearing it again for the first time in a while just puts a nostalgic smile on my face.

I think the reason it doesn't get more love is because its their heaviest most extreme record (which is why I love it).....I always love when a band follows up their biggest breakthrough album with a wtf/extreme record....Its what Faith No More did with Angel Dust and what Trent did with The Fragile and what Deftones did with ST....Around The Fur and White Pony brought forward a lot of posers and people who just wanted to hear ballads or 'Be Quiet and Drive Part 2" or 'Change Part 2" or 'Digital bath Part 2"....And they could have easily sold out and did another WP with a bunch of smooth songs with Chino singing....Instead they just went balls to the wall with the heaviest, rawest songs they had ever written. Chino screaming his head off in almost every song. They literally didnt give a fuck around that time. Just such a raw abrasive 'fuck you' type of album.....A middle finger to everyone who wanted White Pony 2...Its by far my favorite album of theirs....I think they are down on that era because of the massive drug use they ALL were involved in at that time.....Its my fav Deftones era....

I like S/T more than WP, but both albums land in the bottom half of my top 8 Deftones albums. My only problem with S/T is the same one I've had since the first time I heard it: it sounds all over the place stylistically. There's nothing wrong with that, of course; Hexagram, WGTB, Deathblow, Battle Axe, Pins & Needles and Bloody Cape are all top shelf. It's just that the album never feels as cohesive as other albums like ATF, KNY or Diamond Eyes do. I know Chino hates a lot of those songs because he was in a dark place at the time and doesn't want to go back there, which is understandable..

That's why I love SNW so much. It's the clear anomaly in their discography and easily their most atmospheric, which is no small feat when it has albums like KNY and S/T on either side of it. They were pretty much fucked at the time they made it, but it still sounds amazing and holds together remarkably for a band that was breaking apart at the time. Almost as if it's their version of Disintegration. I can only imagine what it would have sounded like had they been successful in getting Ken Andrews to produce it..

One of my no-shit favorite things about a new Deftones album -- ever since SNW -- is reading all the bedroom engineers bitch and moan about how bad the album production/mixing/mastering is/will be. It made Gore so much more enjoyable to see people duping themselves into believing Matt Hyde had no idea what he was doing when he helmed its production. I guess that's why he's a professional engineer and everyone else is just bitching on the internetz, lmao..

So it has been for past Deftones albums, and so it will inevitably be for this next one. Let the good times roll..

I like S/T more than WP, but both albums land in the bottom half of my top 8 Deftones albums. My only problem with S/T is the same one I've had since the first time I heard it: it sounds all over the place stylistically. There's nothing wrong with that, of course; Hexagram, WGTB, Deathblow, Battle Axe, Pins & Needles and Bloody Cape are all top shelf. It's just that the album never feels as cohesive as other albums like ATF, KNY or Diamond Eyes do. I know Chino hates a lot of those songs because he was in a dark place at the time and doesn't want to go back there, which is understandable..

That's why I love SNW so much. It's the clear anomaly in their discography and easily their most atmospheric, which is no small feat when it has albums like KNY and S/T on either side of it. They were pretty much fucked at the time they made it, but it still sounds amazing and holds together remarkably for a band that was breaking apart at the time. Almost as if it's their version of Disintegration. I can only imagine what it would have sounded like had they been successful in getting Ken Andrews to produce it..

One of my no-shit favorite things about a new Deftones album -- ever since SNW -- is reading all the bedroom engineers bitch and moan about how bad the album production/mixing/mastering is/will be. It made Gore so much more enjoyable to see people duping themselves into believing Matt Hyde had no idea what he was doing when he helmed its production. I guess that's why he's a professional engineer and everyone else is just bitching on the internetz, lmao..

So it has been for past Deftones albums, and so it will inevitably be for this next one. Let the good times roll..

I always found it odd Chino hates SNW and S/T because of his drug issues at the time yet he loves Team Sleep, considering that was the same era and he was fucked out his skull around that time as well. I think Chi had some major drug issues that they don't ever go into detail about, and thats the real reason they don't like to talk about that era. I remember Abe doing some interview saying Chi used to "nod off" in the studio all the time during the recording of S/T and SNW (hint hint) and if you watch that Rock am Ring 03 video (which they apparently demanded that it not be televised, which is why it sat in a vault for 16 years) there are closeups of Chi where you see the cocaine in his nose (probably why they refused to allow it to air)...I often wonder if thats the real issue because clean and sober 2007 Chino was going on about how SNW was their best record, yet 10 years later he shits all over it?....Now the real question is which gets released first. The Fragile deluxe or Eros?

They literally didnt give a fuck around that time. Just such a raw abrasive 'fuck you' type of album.....A middle finger to everyone who wanted White Pony 2...Its by far my favorite album of theirs.

Shit, finally someone gets it with the S/T. It has always been my favorite Deftones album since its release, with It not getting nearly as much praise as it should. Only feeling that came close to it was SNW for me.